When your 18-year-old daughter is expelled and charged with sexual battery of a child, one option is to go public and declare she’s a martyr under fire from anti-gay bias. That’s the approach taken by the parents of Kaitlyn Hunt, a Florida teen who faces two felony charges of “lewd or lascivious battery” on a child. And sure enough, the tactic has earned Hunt some high-profile left-wing media defenders.

According to the charges, Hunt, a senior at Sebastian River High School who was set to graduate this spring, pressured a 14-year-old girl four years her junior to be her “girlfriend” and engage in sexual activity with her. But when Kaitlyn faced prosecution from her underage partner’s parents, her own parents and gay activists immediately granted her victim status, claiming she was unjustly persecuted for being homosexual.

Not surprisingly, leftie headlines followed. In the account of ThinkProgress (funded by left-wing sugar daddy George Soros), Hunt was “charged with felony for same-sex relationship with classmate,” while Huffington Post lamented that she “faces felony charges over same-sex relationship” and offers links to petitions and support pages for Hunt.

ThinkProgress quoted Hunt’s mother talking about the underage girl’s parents: “they feel like my daughter “made” their daughter gay. They are bigoted, religious zeolites [sic] that see being gay as a sin and wrong, and they blame my daughter.” [emphasis in original]

Talk like that is catnip to the libertine left, always eager to take a stand against sexual prudery and oppression – especially if evil religious types are involved.

But the sexual activity in question occurred when Hunt was an 18 year-old senior and her “girlfriend” was only 14. “Police said a 4 year age gap is a serious difference. They say a 14-year-old is not old enough to give consent,” according to a local news report.

Clearly, Hunt’s parents and her supporters in their “Stop the Hate, Free Kate” Facebook group disagree. They are portraying her story as a tragedy like Romeo and Juliet – two lovers separated by people who just don’t understand.

But the details aren’t quite so cute and pretty. According to the official charges, Kaitlyn took the lead in initiating lewd sexual activity with her minor girlfriend in the highschool restroom.

Hunt’s father said she’d be fine with pleading guilty to a misdemeanor – just not a felony. Hey, sometimes kids get rambunctious – sewing their oats [nudge, nudge]. Who didn’t engage in aggressive homosexual activity in a public bathroom with a fourteen-year-old back in high school?

Clearly, Hunt’s parents are onto something. If you can play the gay card, you immediately trigger knee-jerk support from the liberal media and homosexual activists anxious to topple any and all rules regarding sex. Who knows--with that kind of angle and pressure from groups like Anonymous and Change.org, maybe they’ll get those felony charges reduced to a “Get Out of Jail Free Card”... just because she was gay.